


Triangle

by forgetme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Other, Post-Chapter 699
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8414083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetme/pseuds/forgetme
Summary: Neji wakes up at the hospital.





	

Neji opened his eyes to glaring brightness. He drew in a sharp breath, blinking rapidly as flashes of pain flared in every fiber of his muscles.

A tiled ceiling, stark white, square lamps exuding cold light, a beeping noise, quick but steady.  His limbs felt heavy and wooden, his body drained of chakra. Pain pulsed in his veins, from the center of his chest down into the tips of his toes. He turned his head, not trusting himself to use the byakugan quite yet.

When he saw the fruitbasket on the table next to the bed, the empty visitor chairs and the open window, Neji willed himself to relax.  This was the hospital. Konoha hospital, where the air was fragrant with the smell of cut grass and where he could see the trees swaying in the breeze through the window. He was home.

Neji breathed in deeply, feeling the air fill his lungs, held his breath, then let it out. As long as he didn’t try to move, the pain was subsiding, no more than a distant pull, just another reminder that he was indeed alive.

He was alive.

But he remembered those things piercing his chest, he remembered collapsing, Naruto’s arms around him, Hinata’s face. Just like he remembered the cold flooding him, his surroundings drowned out by the calm certainty that it was over and that it was alright, somehow.  His father’s smile and the sudden realization that finally he was free. He remembered dying.

Now Neji was here. He was breathing, feeling the firm mattress beneath him, the soft pillow against his cheek. If he’d been able to, he would have tried a dispelling justu to make sure he wasn’t caught in an illusion. Except, of course, that you had to be alive to be caught in an illusion.

He really was alive.

***

How easily sleep had come, quick and silent. Neji had dozed, his gaze on the two chairs by his bedside for a moment before his consciousness was swept away. The last thought on his mind, _why two? Shouldn’t there be three?_ There’d been three last time, after their failed attempt to bring back Sasuke, years ago. _So why only two…?_

_***_

A tangle of voices and the chirping of birds. Neji’s eyes snapped open. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, only that it had passed, that he had been sleeping. The hospital noises had become background to familiar voices floating towards him. They were what pulled him back to full awareness.

“--- you’d stop making excuses for him!” _Tenten._ Light-headed with relief, Neji closed his eyes. _She’s alive,_ he thought, _she’s here. The war is over._

“Tenten, how can you even say that!” Lee sounded genuinely hurt, but then Neji doubted Lee had the ability to be anything but genuine. He could hear their footsteps now; they were approaching his room and Neji found himself smiling. He didn’t have the strength to lift his head, not quite yet, but he could feel the tension in his chest easing. In what he had thought to be his last moments, the one regret he’d had was that he would not be able to see his team again. But now…

“Let’s just drop the subject…” groaned Tenten. Neji knew that tone well. It made him nostalgic for all those training sessions they’d spent watching Lee and Gai’s antics.

There was no immediate reply, just the steady sound of their footsteps. Only when they arrived in front of Neji’s room did Lee speak up, his enthusiasm restored.

“I’m sure he’ll wake up today. If he doesn’t, I’ll do three hundred laps around the village on my hands!”

“Ugh…”

It had taken all of Neji’s strength to turn to the door. Now as the door was pulled open, his vision grew blurry.  He wasn’t usually one to tear up, but as embarrassing as this was – Tenten would never let him hear the end of it – he couldn’t fight the emotion welling up inside him.

Tenten stood in the doorway, Lee behind her. She seemed frozen in place, her hand still on the doorknob, her widening eyes fixed on Neji’s. His smile was unsteady but true.

“Gai-sensei!” she called without taking her eyes off him.

Neji didn’t have enough time to brace himself for the hug. He heard Lee bellow, “Gai-sensei!” No doubt calling their teacher so he could join in smothering Neji, and then their arms were around him, pulling him up into a half-sitting  position and smushing him against their bodies.

“I knew you’d wake up,” Lee sobbed. “I’m so glad…”

 “How could you do something this stupid?” Tenten asked as she disentangled herself from the embrace.

“Tenten,” shouted Lee, scandalized.

“Sorry…” Neji’s mouth was dry, his throat hurt. Speaking was difficult, making his voice sound strange even to his own ears. He’d acted on instinct; there’d been no choice. Hinata’s life had been in danger, he hadn’t had the luxury to contemplate the grief he would cause his friends, but surely they understood that.

 “There is no need to apologize—“

“Idiot,” Tenten interrupted Lee, her voice flat. She wiped at her eyes, dragging the back of her hand across her cheek in one impatient motion. “How could you do that, Gai-sensei? After everything…”

Neji blinked, taken aback. _Gai-sensei?_ His gaze slid over to Lee expecting him to correct her.

 “Tenten, what Gai-sensei did was incredibly honorable! Gai-sensei, I… I was deeply touched by your brave deed! We all were!” Abruptly, Lee bowed, arms stiff at his sides, his body bent at a perfect ninety degree angle. “I am so sorry!” he exclaimed.

“Why are you—“ Neji swallowed, feeling faint.  Now that Lee and Tenten had let go of him, he could barely hold himself upright. His head drooped and his gaze finally focused on the hands in his lap. Large, tanned hands covered in a thin web of scars. Not his hands. “What’s going on?”

“Gai-sensei?” Instantly, Lee put his hands on Neji’s shoulders, guiding him back down onto the mattress. “Are you hurt?”

“We should get Tsunade-sama,” Tenten said. “Something’s wrong.”

Neji caught her eye before she could turn to the door. “Why do you keep calling me that?” he asked. “I’m Neji. Where is Gai-sensei?”

All color drained from Tenten’s face. “What?”                                                            

Lee gave him a gentle shake. His big, round eyes were bigger and rounder than ever. “Gai-sensei! What are you saying? _You_ are Gai-sensei!”

Slowly, Neji raised his right arm. It hurt to move the stiff limb, but he forced himself to reach for his own face, to assure himself—The tips of his index and middle finger brushed over his forehead then froze when they touched his eyebrow. A thick, bushy eyebrow. It couldn’t be.

“Lee,” he said, his voice much deeper than it should have been, but it wasn’t Gai-sensei’s voice, he told himself, not quite.

_A voice sounds different in a person’s head than it does to everyone else._ Neji silently cursed himself for the far too calm and rational thought.

“I’m getting Tsunade-sama!” With that Tenten fled the room, the staccato of her footsteps echoing down the hallway.  

“Lee, what happened to me?” It was hard to keep the fear under wraps now when everything felt so much like a surreal nightmare.

Standing next to his bed, Lee fidgeted, clearly disturbed by the expression on Neji’s face.

“Don’t you remember, Gai-sensei? You wrote me a heartfelt letter…”

“I told you, I’m not Gai-sensei, I’m Neji! Hyuuga Neji,” he added as though Lee’s life was filled with Nejis.

Lee merely continued to stare. “Neji…” he repeated. “But the jutsu failed…Neji is still…”

“Lee, remember that time we sparred and…” he sighed, rolling his eyes, anxiety momentarily pushed aside by annoyance at himself, Lee and this absurd situation, “My hair got caught on a tree branch in the middle of the fight?  I tried to pull free, so I couldn’t block your kick and you hit me in the face? My nose bled so much, you insisted on dragging me to the hospital. I made you swear you’d never tell anyone.”

Suddenly, it was as though all sound had drained from the room. Neji kept looking up at Lee, monitoring the minute changes in his friend’s expression.  A deep crease formed between Lee’s eyebrows as thoughts seemed to trickle through his head. His lips moved but produced no words. Wetness glinted in the corners of his eyes.

“Neji? But— then—Gai-sensei’s jutsu--“ The first tear slid down Lee’s cheek, a fat drop that clung to his jaw where it hung, trembling. “And Gai-sensei…?”

***

There were hugs and tears, open, unashamed wailing from Lee, Tenten covering her face with her hands. Tsunade-sama averted her eyes when Yamashiro Aoba with his hands still on Neji’s forehead confirmed, “Yes, it’s the Hyuuga kid.”

“Any trace of Gai?”

“No.”

***

The story as it was told to him sounded borderline insane. Most of the talking was done by Tsunade-sama with some sparse interjections from Lee and Tenten. Hatake Kakashi, who for some reason had arrived with the Hokage, remained silent throughout. He leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, watching Neji with an unreadable expression on his face.  His presence and his impenetrable gaze – both his eyes open, no sharingan – were unnerving.

Two years, he was told, had passed since the Fourth Shinobi War, in which he, Hyuuga Neji had fallen. At that point, Neji had to swallow the bile rising in his throat as his last memories rose to the surface. He nodded quietly, signaling for Tsunade-sama to continue. About a year after the war, there had been an incident. Top secret and quickly resolved. An insane missing nin from Kusagakure had set out with a scroll containing an ancient forbidden jutsu.  Kugisosei, that was its name. The user’s body would be burned up in sacrifice to restore a dead person to life. That nukenin’s plan was to sacrifice himself in order to bring back Uchiha Madara. Naruto stopped him, stopping the catastrophe, and the Konoha team, Naruto, Hinata, Lee and Tenten brought the scroll back to the village where it would be studied and, if deemed too dangerous, possibly destroyed.

However, only a couple of days after it had been secured, the scroll vanished. There was no trace of the thief, the Anbu squads mobilized to track it down came up with nothing. The search went on and on with no results. Months passed, then a year. Until five days ago when they finally found the scroll. On training ground nineteen. In Gai’s hands. When a powerful eruption of chakra rippled across Konoha, all of the village guards gathered at its epicenter. Gai was there, unconscious, the scroll in his hands. He’d clearly tried to use the forbidden justu, and after searching his apartment, they found out to what end.

“Gai-sensei left each of us a letter in which he explained his noble goal to sacrifice himself in order bring you back to life, Neji,” Lee said, wiping ineffectually at his red-rimmed eyes. “And he succeeded!”

“No, he didn’t. This definitely isn’t what he had in mind, and you know it, Lee!”

“But Neji is alive!”

“He’s stuck in Gai-sensei’s body! What the hell is he supposed to do like this?”

“Quiet, you two.” Tsunade-sama interrupted. Then she turned to Kakashi-sensei, who still hadn’t moved, though the look in his eyes had grown distant. “So, as Hokage, what do you want to do now? Gai committed a serious crime, but for all we know he’s gone. Physically, there’s nothing I can do for him here.”

“Release him. Lee, Tenten, Neji is under house arrest for the time being. He is to stay at Gai’s apartment if there is any change in his condition, you will report to me immediately. Do you understand?”

The two answered as one, “Yes, Hokage-sama!”

Two years, Neji thought numbly, when Tsunade and Kakashi had left and Lee had gone to the reception desk to handle the formalities of Neji’s release. Apart from the change in leadership, what else was waiting for him out there, he wondered as he swung his legs out of bed.   

Tenten shot him a shaky smile. “Wait, I’ll get you a wheelchair,” she said and hurried towards the door.

“That’s fine, I don’t need –“

“Yes, you do. Gai-sensei was hurt badly in the war. He can’t use his right leg anymore.”

The leg was wrapped in bandages. Now that Neji focused on it, he could feel the faint throb of pain again. Gai-sensei’s body…  Hesitantly, he put a hand on his right thigh. The muscle there was hard and well-defined; it bulged under the thin hospital gown.

_Sensei, what did you do?_

“Come on.”

She helped him into the chair, her grip surprisingly strong and sure under his arms. Two years had passed, he reminded himself, he had been _dead._ It felt unreal.

On their way out of the room they passed a small mirror hanging over a sink in the corner. It made Neji think, as he caught their reflection, that he’d never seen Gai-sensei’s eyes hold such worry and dread.


End file.
